Mysterious Mr. Quin - Agatha Christie [70]
Mr Satterthwaite lay back, his head a jumble of fragmentary thoughts, forgotten bits of science learned at school, phrases used by Eastney that night. Resonance–natural periods–if the period of the force coincides with the natural period–there was something about a suspension bridge, soldiers marching over it and the swing of their stride being the same as the period of the bridge. Eastney had studied the subject. Eastney knew. And Eastney was a genius.
At 10.45 Yoaschbim was to broadcast. It was that now. Yes, but the Faust had to come first. It was the ‘Shepherd’s Song’, with the great shout after the refrain that would–that would–do what?
His mind went whirling round again. Tones, overtones, half-tones. He didn’t know much about these things–but Eastney knew. Pray heaven he would be in time!
The taxi stopped. Mr Satterthwaite flung himself out and raced up the stone stairs to a second floor like a young athlete. The door of the flat was ajar. He pushed it open and the great tenor voice welcomed him. The words of the ‘Shepherd’s Song’ were familiar to him in a less unconventional setting.
‘Shepherd, see they horse’s flowing main–’
He was in time then. He burst open the sitting-room door. Gillian was sitting there in a tall chair by the fireplace.
‘Bayra Mischa’s daughter is to wed today:
To the wedding I must haste away.’
She must have thought him mad. He clutched at her, crying out something incomprehensible, and half pulled, half dragged her out till they stood upon the stairway.
‘To the wedding I must haste away–
Ya-ha! ’
A wonderful high note, full-throated, powerful, hit full in the middle, a note any singer might be proud of. And with it another sound, the faint tinkle of broken glass.
A stray cat darted past them and in through the flat door. Gillian made a movement, but Mr Satterthwaite held her back, speaking incoherently.
‘No, no–it’s deadly: no smell, nothing to warn you. A mere whiff, and it’s all over. Nobody knows quite how deadly it would be. It’s unlike anything that’s ever been tried before.’
He was repeating the things that Philip Eastney had told him over the table at dinner.
Gillian stared at him uncomprehendingly.
III
Philip Eastney drew out his watch and looked at it. It was just half-past eleven. For the past three-quarters of an hour he had been pacing up and down the Embankment. He looked out over the Thames and then turned–to look into the face of his dinner companion.
‘That’s odd,’ he said, and laughed. ‘We seem fated to run into each other tonight.’
‘If you call it Fate,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
Philip Eastney looked at him more attentively and his own expression changed.
‘Yes?’ he said quietly.
Mr Satterthwaite went straight to the point.
‘I have just come from Miss West’s flat.’
‘Yes?’
The same voice, with the same deadly quiet.
‘We have–taken a dead cat out of it.’
There was silence, then Eastney said:
‘Who are you?’
Mr Satterthwaite spoke for some time. He recited the whole history of events.
‘So you see, I was in time,’ he ended up. He paused and added quite gently:
‘Have you anything–to say?’
He expected something, some outburst, some wild justification. But nothing came.
‘No,’ said Philip Eastney quietly, and turned on his heel and walked away,
Mr Satterthwaite looked after him till his figure was swallowed up in the gloom. In spite of himself, he had a strange fellow-feeling for Eastney, the feeling of an artist for another artist, of a sentimentalist for a real lover, of a plain man for a genius.
At last he roused himself with a start and began to walk in the same direction as Eastney. A fog was beginning to come up. Presently he met a policeman who looked at him suspiciously.
‘Did you hear a kind of splash just now?’ asked the policeman.
‘No,’ said Mr Satterthwaite.
The policeman was peering out over the river.
‘Another of these suicides, I expect,’ he grunted disconsolately. ‘They will do it.’
‘I suppose,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, ‘that they